>In automotive industry they are even installing a path for you (product
> recall)

A great example....and IDS support works almost the same. To determine a problem with a component a track record has to be established. This means that many customers go to the dealer, or their favorite repair shop and pay for diagnosis/repair. Even if the part is covered by warranty you coud still have to pay for the labor. You will have to pay for both if your warranty has expired (an extended warranty is just like paying for support).

Only when a recall is issued can the rest of the customers benefit - and that's where IDS falls short. Then again you don't get the equivalent of a model upgrade for each recall!

Anyone who runs critical production systems without support is quite mad inmy view. If they are a publicly traded US company then maybe they are falling fowl of federal regs too - the ones that came into play after 911. I would say that not being able to run a production system is just as bad as mind numbingly dumb as not having good backups to recover one!

There's always the other option too....fix the app that is generating a daft query....using the free support it gets.




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